Monday, 13 October 2014

Amnesty changes its style, seeks cooperation with New Delhi

By Ajai
Shukla

Business Standard, 13 Oct 14

For decades,
Amnesty International has been New Delhi’s gadfly in Kashmir, its crusading
officials seldom questioning local accounts of human rights (HR) violations, compiled
into reports that shone a bleak light on the Government of India.

On March
20, 2005, while US President Bill Clinton was visiting New Delhi, unidentified
gunmen massacred 35 Sikhs in Chittisinghpura village in Kashmir. Amnesty
International, as was its practice at that time, made a few phone calls and put
out a report that suggested that Indian soldiers has staged the massacre.

Amnesty’s
fanciful report said, “Several witnesses have said that about 20 men, clad in
olive green combat fatigues, arrived in the village at 7.15 p.m. They told the
people that they were Indian soldiers, and ordered the men out to be
questioned…. As they started firing, the gunmen shouted 'Jai Mata Di' and 'Jai
Hind'. In theatrical fashion, one of them took swigs from a bottle of rum
(liquor popular with the army) even as the killing went on. While leaving, one
of the men called out to his associates: "Gopal, chalo hamare saath" ("Gopal, Come with us").”

Since then,
numerous analysts, including former CIA official, Bruce Riedel, have been convinced
that the Laskhkar-e-Toiba conducted the carnage. Yet, Amnesty’s report still
resonates. Most Kashmiris still believe the Indian Army killed the innocents of
Chittisinghpura during President Clinton’s visit to highlight Pakistan’s meddling
in J&K.

After
decades of slamming New Delhi with such poorly sourced and inadequately
verified reports on HR violations in Kashmir, Amnesty International has realised
that it had marginalized itself in the world biggest democracy.

Since
2010-11, Amnesty --- which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1977 and has 4.6
million members worldwide today --- has overhauled its structure and style,
seeking to work with, rather than talk down to, New Delhi.

Since it
was founded in 1961, Amnesty was controlled from London, since a majority of
its donors are from wealthy western democracies --- the so-called “Global
North”. Now Amnesty wants to extend its influence to the “Global South” --- the
less developed countries (LDCs), and growing powers like Brazil, China, India
and Russia.

“We want to
be taken seriously in India. So we decided to be Indian in character, obtain
funds from Indian donors, and be led by an Indian. Amnesty India’s business
strategy aims to be fully self-reliant by 2019”, says V Shashikumar, who is
joint head of Amnesty India, along with V Anantapadmanabhana.

This new
approach has disconcerted Kashmiri separatists who have long been accustomed to
pliant HR reportage. When an Amnesty team visited Srinagar in 2012, local
newspapers complained that a “compromised Amnesty” could not be fair.
Separatists like Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Yasin Malik told the delegation that
only foreigners could be trusted.

The
militants, including Hizbul Mujahideen chief, Syed Salahuddin, were even more
scathing, declaring that Amnesty worked “hand-in-glove” with New Delhi.

“They (Amnesty)
are shedding crocodile tears to mislead people. Tell me how many times they
have taken the issue of atrocities on civilians in Kashmir by forces to
international forums” Salahuddin told Srinagar-based Kashmir News Service (KNS)
over the phone on April 7, 2013,

Amnesty
India is now a 50,000-member organisation that no longer relies on London for
direction or funding. Its team of 80 workers reach out to potential Indian donors
and members through a sophisticated social media campaign.

“We have
told the government that we are eliminating any dependence on foreign funding.
That means laws like the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010 (FCRA)
will no longer be a bugbear”, says Shashikumar.

Yet Amnesty
intends to continue its “campaigning” approach, releasing reports publicly, and
goading New Delhi to act. This contrasts with the “advocacy” approach of other HR
bodies like Human Rights Watch (HRW), or the United Nations Commission for
Human Rights, which work behind-the-scenes with the government.

In 2011, Amnesty
published “A ‘Lawless Law’”, a report on the draconian J&K Public Safety
Act, 1978, under which Amnesty says 8,000-20,000 citizens have been detained
without charge or trial over the last two decades.

Amnesty is
also campaigning against the Armed Forces Special Powers (Jammu and Kashmir)
Act, 1990, especially Section 7, which mandates prior permission from the
central government to prosecute a member of the military in areas where the
AFSPA is in force.

New Delhi
remains suspicious. An Intelligence IB report, prepared soon after the Narendra
Modi government came to power, has painted foreign-funded NGOs as encumbrances
to India’s economic growth --- responsible for a presumptive loss to India's
GDP of 2-3 per cent. The report named several NGOs including Greenpeace India,
Amnesty and ActionAid, accusing them for stalling industrial projects, such as
those floated by POSCO and Vedanta, by operating through local organizations
such as PUCL and Narmada Bachao Andolan.